It's the debate that relates to cars goes something like this: "Buy American!" vs. "I'll buy what I want!"

That debate sometimes, but not always, begins as a civil conversation. But the Detroit area has been hit hard in the last five years by the ongoing, sometimes enormous financial losses posted by the Big Three. The Big Three's financial woes have had a direct impact on the Michigan economy with hundreds of thousands of layoffs and/or buyouts.

Webmaster's Commentary:

Protectionism is not the solution.

The US auto industry has to retake the lead on making the best cars that people want.

US Industry, cursed with a generation of MBAs taught to view the actual products they manage as less relevant to the process of management, has descended to the level of a third-world nation cranking out so-so products at over-inflated prices (with most of thet money going to sky-high executive compensations). Worse, the attitude of such management has been that if the products are unimportant, so too are the people who make them.

We cannot compete with such an attitude pervading our industry. We must hold the products as most important, and grant the people who make those products the utmost respect.